


I Will Try to Fix You

by MeredithBrody



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Child Death, F/M, Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-27
Updated: 2013-08-27
Packaged: 2017-12-24 18:40:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/943327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeredithBrody/pseuds/MeredithBrody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Trip disappears during a memorial Hoshi goes to find him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Will Try to Fix You

**Author's Note:**

> So. This game from a photoset on "Troshi night" on Tumblr. I'll add a link to the exact post. But basically it's just the out of context screencaps with the lyrics my friend Britt added. The title of this song is (obviously) from the song "Fix You" by Coldplay.
> 
> Here is the photoset: http://iseefearinyoureyeshuman.tumblr.com/post/59369345229

The gathering in the mess had probably only been going an hour or two when Hoshi Sato realised that one of the guests of honour had disappeared. She didn't exactly blame him, it was a terrible and personal reason they'd gathered, but it was probably best that someone try to find him. If only so that she could be sure that he was doing ok.

A year wasn't really enough time to recover from what he'd gone through, but there was a point where he needed to look on the lighter side. She set off through the ship, thinking where Trip would go if he needed peace and quiet. Her first ideas were all empty and devoid of the commander, but she realised she’d struck gold almost the moment she entered the G deck service corridor. She walked along slowly and stopped a few feet from him, making sure that he had space if he didn’t want anyone there with him. She coughed lightly to announce herself before speaking. "Why are you hiding away down here?"

He just looked at her with an expression of complete misery, again, not that she could really blame him for it. She watched him take a breath before he just muttered quietly. "I couldn't face any more." Had she not had good ears she probably would have missed his reply altogether, instead she heard the pain he was trying to hide in it.

"It's a bit overwhelming, I know.” She smiled lightly, hoping she wasn’t overstepping. She had been in the room too, and it had been obvious that the ambience of the gathering was pained and overwhelmingly so. She took a few steps further forward, if only so she could hear him a little easier as she asked her next question. “Want some company?"

"No." He said, a little louder than before, but still low enough that if there was anyone else in the corridor they wouldn’t know he was there, and they’d probably think she was losing her mind and talking to herself. Oh well, there had been worse rumours spread about her over the years since she’d signed on to the ship.

"Want me to leave you alone?" She asked, just to clarify her position, whether she was leaving him alone, or whether she was waiting for him to talk. He just seemed to stare at her for a while, and she wondered what was going through his mind as he did.

"No." He finally replied, and that hadn't been the answer she'd expected. She narrowed her eyes a little then stepped closer again, just a few small steps.

"I'm confused." She said after another second passed. It was obvious Trip was still lost in thought as she closed the distance and leant against the bulkhead opposite him. She didn't want to break his concentration, Not when he was so clearly thinking about his past. He needed to understand it before he could heal.

After another indeterminable length of time past he looked to her again, and she could see the teasing his eyes even across the corridor. "Why did this happen? Why was this something we had to live through, all of us?" He asked in a small voice, so different from his usual commanding tone. The longer she looked at him the more she realised she had no idea how to answer his question.

"I don't know."

He growled a little, but clearly not aiming it at her. "It all keeps turning over in my mind. Everything we could have done differently. Everything that we didn't do, how we didn't get there for me to save her." For a moment she wasn't sure which "her" he meant. Was he talking about his daughter, whose short life they had been commemorating a few decks above, or his sister, whom he'd been 100 light years from when the Xindi had attacked Earth.

"You can't save everyone, Trip." She said, not sure what else she could say. She had to fight her nurturing instinct to sit down beside him and wrap her arms around him. Instead she stayed pushed back against the bulkhead. Listening to Trip pour his heart out to her.

"I only wanted to save one." He mumbled after a while, and she shook her head with a smile. Saving one was something Trip didn’t need to worry about. Maybe he hadn’t saved the one, or ones, he’d wanted. But he’d certainly saved people, and he didn’t even realise it.

"You've already saved at least one."

"How?" He looked at her, for the first time since she’d arrived he looked like he was on her wavelength, and was actually paying attention to what she was saying. She took a few breaths then sat on the conduit beside him.

"You saved me. When I first came aboard you were the one who checked up on me, who was there to push me through my fears.” She smiled and nudged him with her shoulder, trying to cheer him up. “You told me that I could adapt to being in space, and you told me that I was the most vital part of the ship. You were right."

"It's not the same, Hoshi."

"Yes, it is. You wanted to save someone. You saved me.” That was the long and short of her argument. Normally she wouldn’t have been so frank about it, but she felt like he needed the honesty. “I'm sorry you couldn't save Elizabeth, I am, but you're not the only one who couldn't save her."

"Maybe I just wanted to matter." He muttered and looked to the floor, and she reached out and took his hand gently, hoping that one little piece of support was a help in convincing him that he did matter.

"You will always matter. We're home, and the coalition signing is only days away. That will never make up for it, I know. But you need to try to focus on the positives. Did you speak to T'Pol about it?" She asked, surely that was the proper course of action, but maybe she was being too simple about the situation. There was a lot she didn’t know about their time together and what had come from it.

"She shut down, I broke down.” He shook his head, and she understood. She had known that T’Pol had had her way of dealing with it, which was to keep it to herself. Hoshi knew that was never going to have worked for Trip. Had he had this all locked away for a year? She’d probably never know that, but she just sat there next to him and listened to him speak. “We've never been good together, I knew that. Toxic influences. The Captain shared his experience, but it wasn't the same, and all I want to do is hide from everyone and forget that it’s been a year." He choked on the last word, and she could see that he was at the end. He needed to break it down, and he needed to cry it out a little.

"Come here." She whispered and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. Letting him cry into the crook of her neck. Knowing he needed this release probably more than he would ever let on. She'd followed him because she'd known her friend needed help, and he clearly wasn't getting it anywhere else. When his sobs subsided she pulled back a little and kissed his forehead. "Whenever you just need to cry, Trip. My arms are always open." She smiled a little and shrugged lightly. "You were always there for me."

"You've just always been there." Trip mumbled, leaning forward and kissing her gently. It was impossible not to return it, and when he broke backwards she bit her lip and looked at him with a question she didn't need to ask. He smiled a little sadly and brought his hand up to stroke her cheek. "You're just there. You don't demand and you don't question."

"That doesn't explain that?" She asked, almost immediately proving his last point wrong, but she was confused, and she didn’t just want the emotion of the moment to be what was causing all of this. For both of them.

He shook his head, almost as if he knew what she was thinking, and tapped her nose lightly. "That was the first of hopefully many ways of saying thank you for coming finding me."

"Someone has to find you." She shrugged with a slight grin. She meant that. If he needed finding she was always happy to be the one who searched for him. The one who found him in the bowels of the ship.

"Thanks." He muttered, and she tried to keep her face straight as he tugged her gently forward to meet him for another kiss. She wrapped her arms around him, and just let the moment go as it did. All she could think was that she hadn't searched him out expecting anything like this. She'd just known her friend had needed her, but this was definitely something that she was glad about. There would be time to analyse on another day, for now she was going to let her heart lead.


End file.
